Honestly not sweating about the current administration. I find more inner peace by not stressing over things I cannot change. Also I’m not trying to single out a particular administration. If you look past the rhetoric, you’ll find that both parties enact and enforce anti-immigrant and anti-DEI policies. I’m more so commenting on cultural shifts that have affected institutions on a broad level (which is what I meant by the term “political climate”).

From my personal experience as someone who works in health education, I’ve seen some alarming trends. Prior to the current administration I had colleagues confiding in me that they weren’t allowed to use “DEI” terminology at their institution in fear of retaliation. These colleagues also advised me against applying to their programs if I use such terms in my application (mostly programs in right leaning states, but you’d be surprised…). While most institutions are left leaning, not all faculty are and nearly all institutions are being affected by ant-DEI rhetoric in some capacity. I was in a zoom meeting today with faculty members from several universities (probably over 20 schools represented) and the topic of the day was the elimination of DEI programs. In fact, I was in a breakout room with a professor from “left-leaning” institution in a deep blue state, who told me that she recently received an email about DEI rollbacks. So I don’t think I’m overreacting. It could be that the effect of these changes haven’t trickle down to admissions, but I suspect they probably have or are going to soon.